


bacon, berries, and brothers

by NeverSeenHer



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beauregard Lionett's Backstory, Food Issues, Gen, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22621180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverSeenHer/pseuds/NeverSeenHer
Summary: While on watch together, the Empire kids have a chat about food, control, and pocket bacon.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 28
Kudos: 232





	bacon, berries, and brothers

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this last year when it was slightly more relevant to canon. no idea what this is now

“Why do you do that?”

At his question, Beau looked up and shot him a curious glance. She and Caleb were awake for the third and final watch, and had been passing the time in amiable, relative silence: Caleb was reading, and Beau had started picking at a handful of berries she found in one of her coat pockets. At least, she thought Caleb had been reading, until she noticed his eyes were on her, puzzled and intent.

“Do what?” said Beau.

Caleb drummed his fingers on the cover of his book. “You can tell me to, ah, fuck off if you do not wish to answer,” he began carefully.

“Just clarify what you’re asking, man, and I’ll let you know if I want you to fuck off.” She paused, relented. “I probably won’t tell you to fuck off, though, so chill.”

“The pocket bacon. And the berries.” He gestured to the ones currently cupped in her palm. “You always have some sort of leftover food kept in your pockets, even when we are back in the Xhorhaus, with a kitchen full of snacks and Caduceus’s cooking.”

“Oh.” She scrunched her brow. “Huh. You noticed that?”

“I don’t mean to assume it is a big deal or anything. It may just be an odd, idle habit.” Caleb hesitated, and then put his book down on the ground. “But you told me before, that I did not know your last name because I never asked. So I’m asking now. In case there is a story there you are willing to talk about.”

“Well,” she said, mouth quirking into a smile, “I’m pretty much the last person with any right to complain about people asking questions, I s’pose.”

“That’s not true. I would never begrudge you your privacy, Beauregard.” Then he smiled, too. “No matter how many prying questions you aim at everyone else.”

“Very funny. Well, lucky for you, I’m no hypocrite.” Beau dropped her eyes, frowning at a berry she was rolling between her thumb and index finger. “I, uh, I don’t really have anything to hide.”

“Okay,” he said softly. Leaving the ball in her court.

There was a long silence. And then Beau popped the berry in her mouth, grimacing slightly at the stale flavor. She held out her palm to Caleb.

“Want some? I have a couple strips of ham in my pocket, too, I’m pretty sure, if you're looking for some protein instead.”

“No, but thank you for the offer.”

Beau shrugged, and ate the rest of her berries. It was only after she was done that she spoke again.

“My parents, uh... they didn’t always agree on the best ways to deal with me,” she began wryly. “My mom usually thought it was easier to just leave me alone, let me ruin my own life or whatever. And my dad believed in a _firm_ hand, you know, proper discipline.”

“They do not sound very fun,” said Caleb, matching her tone.

“Ha. I know, right?” Beau coughed, cleared her throat. “But yeah, uh, the one punishment they both really liked was, uh... y’know, that ‘go to bed without dinner” thing.” She ducked her head and laughed a little. “’Cept sometimes it was more like breakfast, lunch, dinner.”

“They starved you?” Caleb’s voice was very startlingly soft, devoid of shock or anger.

“No, that’s—that’s kinda way too dramatic a view of things, really.” She shrugged. “It was more like, like sometimes when they’d lock me up I wouldn’t get any meals for a day or two. Or, like, sometimes they’d both make sure I wasn’t eating but probably didn’t realize they were doin’ it one after another because they didn’t communicate about that sorta shit, so it was worse than they meant it.”

“That is very fucked up,” Caleb said matter-of-factly, in a way that made Beau suddenly acutely glad this conversation was happening with him and none of the others. “You realize that, don’t you, Beauregard?”

“I mean, I can tell it wasn’t very fucking stellar parenting. But like... you know, the clincher was that almost every time that shit happened, when it was over and I was _allowed_ to eat again, I fucking didn’t. I’d hold out, refuse whatever was on the table and just drag it out for, like, another day.” Beau blew out a breath, dropped her gaze. She remembered vaguely she thought her tiny, pointless rebellion was _winning_ somehow. How she was determined to not give them the satisfaction of—of seeing her react appropriately to anything. “That was fucking stupid of me. _That_ was fucked up.”

“You were searching for a sense of control in a situation where you were allowed none,” Caleb said, quiet. “That is understandable, Beauregard.”

She looked up to find him watching her intently, unblinkingly. His hand twitched like he wanted to reach out to her but then thought better of it. Instead, he snapped his fingers. Frumpkin appeared in her lap, a warm, fuzzy, reassuring weight.

She tangled her fingers in his fur.

“Thanks. ‘Control’ sorta makes sense, I guess.” Her voice came out unexpectedly rough. “My father thought withholding meals was effective ‘cause he liked how it made me...” _Tired, dizzy. Drained and weak and compliant._ “...easier to deal with. My mom just liked how it made me look thinner in a dress for parties and shit.”

She chanced another glance at Caleb, and was relieved to find no trace of pity in his face. Only understanding. Frumpkin purred in her lap, dug his claws a little into her legs as his back arched into her touch. Beau smiled down at the cat, feeling steadier, more grounded to the present with every stroke of his fur.

It was weird—she couldn’t remember ever talking about this shit to _anyone_ before. Giving voice to it made her insides feel all jagged and raw, which was stupid and made no sense. It wasn’t like making her skip a few meals was the crappiest thing her parents had ever done. And the worst of it had passed once she was 15 or 16, and more emboldened to sneak into town for her criminal activities, no longer so reliant on her parents and tethered to the house. She hadn’t even thought about any of that crap in _years._

“Food has always been a deeply effective method of control,” Caleb murmured, in the tone of someone who knew this intimately firsthand. Another reason she couldn’t wait to feel Ikithon’s face break beneath her fist. “You deserved better parents than those people who raised you, Beauregard.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She snorted, diverting her gaze again. “But they probably deserved a better daughter, so. Whatever.”

“That is not—” Caleb hummed, shook his head. “We can argue about that another day.”

“If you say so. And, uh back to your original point, this shit...” Beau pulled some bacon out of her pocket. Fed a small chunk to Frumpkin. “This is vestigial shit, y’know, like this is me, uh, _recovered,_ with my head together.”

It used to be a bigger _thing_ with her, one she hadn’t really noticed until she got to the Cobalt Soul and started getting in trouble for it. In Kamordah Beau would steal food without thinking about it, keeping it in her pockets and hidden in her room until things started rotting. At the same time she’d be skipping meals sometimes even when she didn’t have to. She never really examined that or thought about _why._

Then at the Archive, where meals were strictly regulated to thrice a day, at the same _times_ every day, it all became a lot harder to ignore. She didn’t eat when she was supposed to. She stole from the kitchens all the time, even though she almost always got caught. But eventually the relentless routine got to her, shifted something inside of her—the morning wake-up and evening curfew, the mind-numbing studying, the ruthless training, the three square meals a day at the same times every day. Beau _wanted_ to learn how to move and fight the way her mentors did, wanted it more than anything.

She ate at mealtimes. But she’d still sneak away a small portion of each meal—a couple strips of bacon, or a scoop of fruit, or whatever—and squirrel it away somewhere on her person because there was nowhere to hide shit in the barebones sleeping quarters she shared with other trainees.

“You know,” Caleb said wryly, “you could at least just keep some non-perishables on you, instead.”

Beau snorted. “What, like some saltine crackers or something? Or pastries?”

“Pastries are _not_ non-perishables.”

“Tell that to Jester.”

They snickered, a funny rush of fondness engulfing them both.

“I meant,” said Caleb, “maybe jerky or something else a little more preserved than pocket bacon.”

“Eh, maybe.” Beau shrugged, winked. “It’s not as fun and sexy when it’s premeditated and all well thought-out and shit, though.”

“Yes,” Caleb said dryly, “we mustn’t forget to factor in how fun and sexy our maladaptive coping mechanisms are.”

He was stifling a smile. She laughed and grinned back, jabbing him gently in the shoulder.

“Exactly,” she said. “You get it.”

“Ja.” He smiled, for real this time. “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Any comments are always deeply appreciated <3


End file.
